Winnipeg trees to be injected with trial vaccine for Dutch elm disease

Winnipeg trees to be injected with trial vaccine for Dutch elm disease

Winnipeg will be the national test site for a new vaccine against Dutch elm disease, a deadly fungus that has devastated native populations of elm trees from Saskatchewan to the east coast of Canada.

Two hundred healthy trees in Kildonan Park and Wildwood Park will be injected with Dutch Trig, a biological vaccine developed at the University of Amsterdam by a company from the Netherlands. The vaccine, which must be injected annually, doesn't cure trees infected with DED but is thought to prevent it.

According to the Dutch Trig website, the vaccine induces a response from the immune system of the tree and spurs the tree's natural defence mechanisms. With that induced resistance, the elm is able to successfully fend off a DED infection using its own resistance mechanisms.

Link: www.cbc.ca...

Different source: www.winnipegfreepress.com...

This is news to me, first time I've ever heard of trees receiving a vaccine. The first thing I thought of was the Day Of The Triffids

Apparently this vaccine has been registered in Europe since 1992 and registered in the USA since 1995. It's also been used in 2,500 trees so far in the United States.




[edit on 19-5-2009 by ZombieSlayer]